"Larry, can you be any more of a Yankee apologist?.... Just look past your Yankee myopia and try some objectivity." - Bernal Diaz

"Mr. Mahnken is enlightened." - cordially, as always,
rm

"Wow, Larry. You've produced 25% of the comments on this thread and
said nothing meaningful. That's impressive, even for you." - Anonymous

"After reading all your postings and daily weblog...I believe you have truly become the Phil Pepe of this generation. Now this is not necessarily a good thing." - Repoz

"you blog sucks, it reeds as it was written by the queer son of mike lupica and roids clemens. i could write a better column by letting a monkey fuk a typewriter. i dont need no 181 million dollar team to write a blog fukkk the spankeees" - yan

"i think his followers have a different sexual preference than most men" - bob

Invented by John Thorn and Pete Palmer, this is a measure of the number of runs a pitcher saved compared to average. The formula is league-average RA/IP minus park-adjusted RA/IP, times total innings pitched. This is the same formula as Lee Sinins' RSAA (see below).

Fielding Independent Pitching, a measure of all those things for which a pitcher is specifically responsible. The formula is (HR*13+(BB+HBP)*3-K*2)/IP, plus a league-specific factor (usually around 3.2) to round out the number to an equivalent ERA number. FIP helps you understand how well a pitcher pitched, regardless of how well his fielders fielded. FIP was invented by Tangotiger.

Expected Fielding Independent Pitching. This is an experimental stat that adjusts FIP and "normalizes" the home run component. Research has shown that home runs allowed are pretty much a function of flyballs allowed and home park, so xFIP is based on the average number of home runs allowed per outfield fly, and adjusted for the home run tendencies of the ballpark. Theoretically, this should be a better predicter of a pitcher's future ERA.

ERA measured against the league average, and adjusted for ballpark factors. An ERA+ over 100 is better than average, less than 100 is below average.

CERAComponent ERA (CERA)

Definition: A statistic that estimates what a pitcher's ERA should have been, based on his pitching performance.ERC=(((H+BB+HBP)*PTB)/(BFP*IP))*9-.56

The last three numbers are my own creations. Similar to ERA+, I calculate the pitcher's BB rate, HR rate, and K rate and compare it to the league average and adjust for park factors. This is not per inning, but per batter. For BB+ and HR+, the higher number, the worse. For K+, the higher the number, the better. Man, Tanyon Sturtze is awful. He's allowing HRs at a rate of 3.4 times the average pitcher so far.